The Retro Hour (Retro Gaming Podcast)

The Retro Hour (Retro Gaming Podcast)

Your weekly dose of retro gaming and technology news and interviews with industry veterans. New episodes released every Friday!

Episodes

499: "Nintendo Made Us Cut the Bikini Girls from Duke Nukem 64" - Eurocom's Kev Harrison - The Retro Hour EP499

September 26, 2025 • 102 mins
This week we chat with designer Kev Harrison, whose career began at Eurocom working on Duke Nukem 64 and Duke Nukem: Zero Hour. Kev shares what it was like adapting Duke’s outrageous world for Nintendo, from cutting bikini girls to sneaking in Simpsons gags, as well as why his team saw Duke as a tongue-in-cheek Bruce Campbell figure while publishers insisted he was a deadly serious hero. We also cover his years bringing Bond, ...
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498: “Arcade Lessons, Nintendo Secrets, and Omega 6” – Takaya Imamura & Junji Seki - The Retro Hour EP498

September 19, 2025 • 65 mins
This week we hear part two of our chat with Nintendo legend Takaya Imamura and game director Junji Seki. We hear about the creation of Omega 6: The Triangle Stars, blending manga, classic adventure game engines, and even a rock-paper-scissors battle system. Imamura reflects on his decades at Nintendo, from the high-stakes launch of the Switch to breaking free with new creative freedom, while Seki shares stories of arcades, fou...
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497: “We Wanted Ocarina’s Opposite - That’s Why Majora’s Mask Got So Dark” - Takaya Imamura Interview - The Retro Hour EP497

September 12, 2025 • 85 mins
This week we welcome Nintendo legend Takaya Imamura, the visionary artist behind F-Zero, Star Fox, and Majora’s Mask. We hear some incredible stories from his three decades at Nintendo: from being interviewed by Shigeru Miyamoto, to creating Captain Falcon on a whim, to the wild one-year crunch that gave birth to Majora’s Mask. He reveals how a shrine in Kyoto inspired Fox McCloud, why Tingle was born out of pure exhaustion, a...
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496: "The SID Chip Was My First Love” - Jeroen Tel: Maniacs of Noise - The Retro Hour EP496

September 5, 2025 • 84 mins
This week we catch up with legendary C64 composer Jeroen Tel of Maniacs of Noise fame. Jeroen takes us back to the early days of programming music directly in machine code, pushing the SID chip to its limits, and soundtracking classics like Cybernoid, Hawkeye, Supremacy, and Turbo OutRun. From cracktros and demo parties, we hear the story of some of the most iconic game music of the 8-bit era.  This episode was recorded live a...
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495: PS1 Demo Discs, Bedroom Coders and FMV Revival - Indie Games That Changed The World - The Retro Hour EP495

August 28, 2025 • 86 mins
We're joined by games journalist and author Aaron Potter to chat about his new book, 50 Indie Games That Changed the World. From the roots of the Indie scene with the 80's bedroom coders, the revival of lost genres like FMV games, and how modern indie titles are keeping classic computers and consoles alive.

50 Indie Games That Changed The World: https://tinyurl.com/4s3y5p27

Contents:

00:00 - The Week...
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494: “Sonic R’s Soundtrack Has a Life of Its Own” - Richard Jacques, The Sound of 90s SEGA - The Retro Hour EP494

August 21, 2025 • 96 mins
This week’s episode comes live from Retromessa 2025 in Norway, where we were joined on stage by legendary video game composer Richard Jacques. From creating music on a ZX Spectrum at age 11 to scoring iconic titles like Sonic R, Jet Set Radio, Headhunter, and Mass Effect, Richard shares his incredible journey through Sega’s golden years, live orchestras at Abbey Road, and the unexpected afterlife of a song that became a meme. ...
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493: “Flash Games Should Never Have Died” – Alex Johansson, Experimental Game Maker - The Retro Hour EP493

August 14, 2025 • 93 mins
This week we are joined by award-winning experimental designer, educator and game maker Alex Johansson of ALYO Games. He is the mind behind wild alt-controller creations like Muppet Boxing, syringe-powered co-op games and his new Morse code-based strategy title Morse. We dive into the wonderfully strange world of odd inputs, discuss why Flash games should have been preserved, explore how gaming can reach older and underserved ...
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492: “My Teacher Said I Wasn’t That Good” – The Story of Worms with Andy Davidson - The Retro Hour EP492

August 7, 2025 • 100 mins
This week, we chat with Andy Davidson, the creator of the legendary game Worms. Andy shares how a quirky artillery game made on a school Amiga evolved into one of the most recognisable franchises in gaming history. From ripping sprites out of Lemmings for a laugh, to a five-minute pitch that landed him a publishing deal with Team17, plus some updates on the upcoming Worms Director's Cut 1.5 for the Amiga! 

Andy Davids...
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491: Croc Was Meant to Be Yoshi - Then It All Changed! - Matt Porter, Argonaut Programmer - The Retro Hour EP491

July 31, 2025 • 99 mins
This week we’re joined by Matt Porter, former programmer at Argonaut Software and one of the key developers behind Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. Matt shares inside stories from the development of titles like Creature Shock, Scooby-Doo Mysteries, and SWAT: Global Strike Team, delves into the challenges of porting games across wildly different platforms, and teases some fascinating lost betas and unreleased gems he’s been finding ...
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490: "I Only Found Out My Game Was in a Magazine Years Later" Rob Smith, Retro Inventor - The Retro Hour EP490

July 24, 2025 • 91 mins
This week’s guest is Rob Smith: the mad‑scientist of the retro scene. Rob takes us on a tour of his wild inventions—from a disco‑themed floppy‑disk cleaning workstation that actually plays tunes, to a full‑scale whack‑a‑mole game controlled by an Amiga via Arduino and AMOS, and his glowing levitating Boing Ball built with magnets and LEDs. He also talks about the Retro Directory, disc backup stations, and his journey from VIC ...
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489: “Don’t Press OK – It Will Destroy Your PC!”: QA Testing at Virgin with Dave Isherwood - The Retro Hour EP489

July 18, 2025 • 91 mins
his week, we go behind the scenes of ’90s game testing with QA veteran Dave Isherwood! From the chaos of Virgin Interactive’s wild office parties to uncovering show-stopping bugs just hours before launch. Hear about the day Virgin fell apart, the mystery of the deadly red screen, and why he had to fake losing video game tournaments. 

Contents:

00:00 - The Week's Retro News Stories 
37:37 - Dave Isherwood ...
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488: "My Spectrum Caught Fire on Boxing Day!" - RetroBytes - The Retro Hour EP488

July 11, 2025 • 89 mins
This week, we’re joined by John from the awesome YouTube channel RetroBytes - a creator who dives into the obscure corners of computing history. From his childhood memories of a flaming Spectrum, to restoring Unix workstations, the beauty of operating systems that time forgot, and why Gopher might’ve beaten the web, if not for one fatal mistake. 

RetroBytes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RetroBytesUK

Co...
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487: “We Cold-Called Nintendo After a Few Ciders” The Story of Enigma Variations - The Retro Hour EP487

July 3, 2025 • 93 mins
This week, we’re joined by Darren Melbourne and Mark Greenshields to unravel the untold story of British software house Enigma Variations. From bargain licensing deals for Postman Pat and Bugs Bunny to cold-calling Nintendo after a few ciders. Plus, their recent efforts to preserved lost classics, the truth behind NES Lion King, and why some of their best work never saw the light of day... until now.

Contents:
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486: He Cracked Games at 14, Then Made Game Genie and Rock n’ Roll Racing - The Retro Hour EP486

June 27, 2025 • 100 mins
We’re joined by Allen Anderson, a veteran SNES coder, and one of the key programmers behind Rock n’ Roll Racing. Starting as a teenage game cracker in Arkansas, he shares how hacking games led him into the industry, the chaos of SNES development with homemade dev kits, and how he programmed the Game Genie under insane deadlines, and the story behind the legendary cancelled Sega Saturn title, Propaganda. 

Contents:
...
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485: Psygnosis to PSN: Phil Gaskell on Shaping Sony’s Early Playstation Era - The Retro Hour EP485

June 20, 2025 • 92 mins
This week, we chat with game developer and producer Phil Gaskell, whose career spans from typing BASIC on a ZX81 to shaping titles at Psygnosis, Sony Playstation and Warthog. Phil shares behind-the-scenes tales of early PlayStation days, cancelled games, missed payrolls and mafia connections at Gizmondo, and rebooting iconic games like Lemmings and Super Stardust HD. 

Contents:

00:00 - The Week's Retro News S...
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484: The Man Who Tried To Save the Amiga: Petro Tyschtschenko - The Retro Hour EP484

June 13, 2025 • 97 mins
This week we hear about the turbulent post-Commodore years with former Amiga Technologies President, Petro Tyschtschenko. From scrambling to find buyers after Commodore’s collapse to selling Amiga 1200s out of a warehouse in India, Petro shares his story, from the courtroom battles, the backroom deals, and the community spirit that refused to let the Amiga die. 

Contents:

00:00 - The Week's Retro News Stories...
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483: Last Action Hero to Chronicles of Riddick: Cos Lazouras Tells All - The Retro Hour EP483

June 5, 2025 • 87 mins
This week we welcome Cos Lazouras, a true veteran with over three decades in the games industry. From blagging his way into Bits Studios to working with Vin Diesel on The Chronicles of Riddick, Cos shares incredible stories from working on Spider-Man, The Simpsons, Wolverine and Last Action Hero including why that one remains his most ‘disastrous’ game. And his incredible new 80's themed point & click adventure.

V...
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482: Medal of Honor: The Inside Story with Chris Cross - The Retro Hour EP482

May 29, 2025 • 98 mins
This week we’re joined by Chris Cross, the original lead designer of Medal of Honor, who cut his teeth at Blizzard on Warcraft II and Diablo, worked on Small Soldiers: Squad Commander, survived Trespasser: The Lost World, and brought us gritty realism in Homefront. Chris shares some amazing behind-the-scenes stories, from Spielberg’s influence and arcade obsessions, to why he loved PS1 development and what went wrong (and righ...
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481: Tony Warriner & Stoo Cambridge’s UrbX Warriors: A Masterpiece for the ZX Spectrum Next - The Retro Hour EP481

May 23, 2025 • 82 mins
This week, we chat with two legends of the British gaming scene, Tony Warriner (Revolution Software) and Stoo Cambridge (Sensible Software),  who’ve teamed up to create UrbX Warriors, an incredible new title for the ZX Spectrum Next. 

UrbX Warriors Kickstarter: https://tinyurl.com/yvhw43et

Contents:

00:00 - The Week's Retro News Stories 
32:29 - Tony Warriner & Stoo Cambridge Interview
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480: Diablo, StarCraft & Comix Zone: Stieg Hedlund Reveals All - The Retro Hour EP480

May 15, 2025 • 85 mins
This week we hear about the incredible career of game designer Stieg Hedlund! From his early days tinkering with BASIC on a Bally Astrocade to shaping some of the most iconic titles of the '90s like Comiz Zone, The Ooze, and the legendary Diablo.  

Contents:

00:00 - The Week's Retro News Stories 
42:26 - Stieg Hedlund Interview

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